14 comments:

Thanks so much for taking the time and trouble to make these available. As a non-linguist-type Brit, I'm in a constant battle with the minefield of German grammar, and maps made by someone who speaks the same language, knows where you're likely to tread, and is good at explaining have made the chances of me making the other side in one piece infinitely higher!

Laura: Thanks so, so much for these wonderful German Grammarpods. What a lot of effort on your part. You are a very gifted at teaching and I like that you speak so clearly and are easy to understand. I also somehow missed out on grammar when learning German (although I learned it in Germany through speaking) and I really needed some grammar help. Thanks ever so much for making the transcripts available. These podcasts have been such a blessing. Amy in Arkansas.

I found your podcast through itunes, I've heard the first two so far. As Im not a native english speaker, i find myself rewinding it every few minutes and overall i really like it :-)What other resources/tools/ways do u suggest for learning the grammar?

Hi Udi,Canoo has some very useful things to say about grammar in German and in English: http://www.canoo.net/index_en.html

You could also practise using German exercises. For instance, these are quite good if you are a beginner or intermediate learner: http://www.hueber.de/shared/uebungen/themen-aktuell/lerner/uebungen/although they don't specify which grammar point they test you on, there is likely to be a grammar point behind most of them. I learnt German in Germany using Themen Aktuell's predecessor, which was just called "Themen", and I found it very useful (although it is a general course book, not specifically focused on grammar).

It might also be a good idea to get a grammar workbook (a workbook is an Arbeitsbuch in German). I am currently working my way through a grammar workbook for Polish. I can't recommend a particular book for German, but I do recommend getting one that includes the answers in the back, so that you can check if you got the exercises right. Knowing where you went wrong will help you understand how the grammar works and where you need to think about it differently or practise more.

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I learnt German at school and hated it - no one wanted to explain the structures to me. Back then I thought that there couldn't be any structures in German, otherwise people would explain how they work to me to save me a lot of time and effort. So I gave up German.
Fortunately, I ended up doing my gap year in Germany, learning German in classes for foreigners, and then studying German at university. And finally, people wanted to teach me grammar.
I was lucky, I get grammar, it stuck in my head, and I graduated with a first class degree with distinction in the spoken and written language.
Since then, I've worked as a translation checker and a financial analyst with a focus on German-speaking regions, and I'm now a financial translator. I also had a brief go at teacher training, but quit, partly because 30 11-year-olds in a room really give me stage fright, but partly because teaching theory dictated that teachers focus on speaking and avoid teaching the interesting bit: the grammar. So now, I'm making German GrammarPod, to try and pass on the love and understanding of grammar, but without the bit where I need to stand up in front of 30 11-year-olds to deliver it.